"Those things'll kill ya," I point out, without rancor, gesturing at his cigarettes. "But I'd like one if you're offering." I'm not really a smoker--just never really got interested in starting up the habit. But it's a relic of the familliar, of a world I don't think I'll be going back to anytime soon, and so I'm happy to take advantage.
"I like journalists," I add, smiling as I remember Sanderson. "I'd like to take a look at your pictures if that's possible. And, sure, you can take mine. Nothing like an obvious freak to headline a piece about the freak show that is this place, after all."
((If you're one of the woefully large number of people unfamilliar with Oly's canon, she is a hunchbacked albino dwarf. Currently she's dressed in Hogwarts robes and is sporting a wig and glasses.))
"Yeah, sure, go ahead." He shoved the pack toward her (he figured she was some sort of woman but couldn't figure out exactly what sort she was, except that she seemed to be a woman and looked like she'd maybe been crushed or something, but that was just the way some people looked), smiling. "Got a light, too. And they don't kill you so fast. I mean, there's worse things out there that'll do the job a whole lot faster, ahah."
He nodded. "Yeah, yeah, only I don't have any really, you know, sun shiney pictures with me. I've been in, uh, the war, and it's hasn't been a walk in the park." And a picture? Also good. She was interesting-looking, he liked that. Maybe he'd get pictures of everyone here, some time. "Hell, I don't know about freak, lady. Long as you don't go attacking my face or trying to stick a grenade down my shirt, I think you're a-okay."
I take cigarette and lighter and fumble the job, but e ventually get the thing lit. Ahh, nicotene. I forgot what this is like. I take the first appreciative drag, smiling as the smoke goes into my lungs.
"Yeah, you're right about other things killing you faster," I answer him. "And in any case, you're not likely to die while you're here--at least, that's what I've been told."
My smile is sardonic at his comment about the pictures. "Yeah, I figured you hadn't been to a happy place, not after reading that." I gesture with my cigarette toward his application. "I'm still curious, though. I think most people here have been to our fair share of unhappy places, and we can probably handle it."
At his comment about freaks, I laugh. "Nah. Not my style." No, my style involves suffocation via chlorene and ammonia and eventually, failing that, good old-fashioned gunfire, but we haven't even exchanged names yet, so it's not like I'm going to tell him that.
"Yeah?" No death? There was a sudden wash of relief, a sense of safety where there had been nothing of the sort... And then there was a momentary twinge, a question of how that might be any better, whether it might not be a curse, when death had its uses and death was part of the world and hadn't he wanted, in some way...?
He shook himself, pulling a handful of pictures out of a bag that he wore slung over his shoulder. He hadn't had any time to organize these yet; they were fairly recent (pictures of the recent captives, the last bundle of men brought to the compound in pieces, the child he'd found in the jungle, monkey playing around with its brains...), and he'd been occupied with a few other matters during the tail end of his stay at the compound. "You've got a sense of adventure. I like that! If you really want to see 'em, here are a few. Nothing spectacular, just this and that..." He trailed off, lost in thought for a moment. Wait. Where was...? It should be safe. He'd kept it separate. The picture of him. He'd been threatened
( ... )
Without finding ways to fill the time, Hogwarts was the sort of place that could grow dull very fast. So in order to waste time, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen had taken to wandering by the Sorting Room. It was an excellent spot to find strange individuals in a rather bemusing state of disorientation, which appealed to his need to study and assess people. There was not any specific purpose for it right now, but, it had a worth in its own right. The study of people and their remarkably predictable behaviors was both entertaining, and a worthwhile science, for each individual added more pieces to the beautifully complex puzzle
( ... )
"Uh... what?" The Photojournalist tilted his head, not sure what this guy was talking about. Winning...? He took... There wasn't a contest or anything, was there? had he mentioned one? He scratched his head, trying to recall what he might have mentioned in his answers and largely failing to recall. That happened. Losing track of words. He laughed nervously. "I don't follow."
The Baron chuckled dryly. Of course he didn't follow. This guy was probably blasted out of his head on something- it wasn't semuta, as his eyes weren't the right color, but, it had to be something. And the majority of it wasn't necessarily caused by substances. "Whatever involved killing, and bloodshed, and Colonels. The latter are usually only present when somebody thinks there's something to be won." The tattered, unwashed clothes, the blood, the nervousness- it all suggested that he'd still been in the middle of whatever it was.
"Oh, ha-ha," he was grinning, but the expression was of nerves more than humor. He'd been genuinely pleased for a moment, when he first made the connection, and then the implications had started to sink in. "Yeah, the Colonel, man... Some people'll tell you there wasn't anything to win out there, with what he was doing. The guys who tried to take him away. They said... they said he was fighting a war that didn't exist. They said he'd made his own war. Man, they didn't know WHAT they were talking about. NOTHING. And then they come and... they come and try to take him away...
"What they didn't know was that we had EVERYTHING to win, everything was at stake, we're talking the big time, man. No holding back, no mercy, just GOING out there and doing whatever it takes
( ... )
"Over WHERE?" He laughed, making a joke out of it because he couldn't figure where the question was coming from. Unless it was another one of those questions that had to do with something he'd said, and damned if he knew on that. He wondered whether he should start writing down or recording everything he said, but only people who had something worth saying recorded it, so never mind that.
None of that actually helped him, of course.
"Ah... Over there, over there, send the word, send the word, over there," his voice was a bit cracked, not fully in tune, but he made up for this in enthusiasm. In some sense. "That the YANKS are comin'! The Yanks are comin'!"
"Look, man, I don't know what you're talking about." He'd been frustrated momentarily, but now he held his hands outward, offering an apologetic grin. "Just specify a little, tell me what you're saying."
Francis didn't know what had happened to the Photojournalist, but he'd met many men like this before. Too many. He sighed but plastered a grin on his face before he walked over to the man.
"Bonjour, mon Américain," he greeted, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "Do you need any more?"
"Heyyyyyyyyyy, a Frenchie!" He grinned, nodding. "Nah, I'm all right, but thanks! Hey, maybe I'll try one anyway, if you don't mind. We don't get a lot of choice out there, it'd be great to try something else. You want to exchange? These aren't great, but they're, ah... they've got an authentic flavor to 'em, that's it. You get to like 'em.
"We didn't get a lot of French guys out there. heard there was a camp of 'em somewhere, but they must not've been too close, or anything. I mean, I ran into one in the jungle once, but I think that guy came from somewhere else, you never know with anyone crawling around the jungle."
"A trade?" he echoed, "That would be magnifique." It didn't take any further convincing on the Photojournalist's part; Francis produced two cigarettes from his pack and held them out to the newcomer.
Francis looked the man up and down as he listened, considering the clothes, the camera, the state of the Photojournalist himself...and well, there was only one war he could recall that fit comfortably with all the pieces. "Vous étiez à Viêtnam??" he guessed, unintentionally slipping back into French.
"Great! Great," he took the cigarettes and offered a pair of his own, nearly bobbing back and forth at the prospect of a couple of new cigarettes. It might not have been the most thrilling of possibilities, but it was friendly, or it felt like it was, and most (or all) of the visitors to the compound had at best been just short of hostile.
"Yeah, sure, I was in Vietnam." He didn't remember much about French, had picked up some here and there and then ceased to use it, but that seemed about right. He figured that was what the guy had said, anyway, heard the question and didn't debate with himself. "We were all in Vietnam, ahah, and then we were all a long way from Vietnam, you know what I mean? I mean, uh, geographically... physically it was right there, right next door, ha!, but we were pretty far gone from there. I mean, we couldn't--most of us couldn't get away from what was going on, exactly - the Colonel could, but man, he was his own story, he was his own man and his own world - but everything changed."
"What jungle were you expecting this to be?" Grant asked. It clearly wasn't the same jungle he'd spent time in. People-on-people violence was at a general minimum on Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna.
"Oh. Cambodian jungle. Jungle in Cambodia. I sure as hell didn't get far enough to be out of Cambodia. I don't think. Uh... I lost track of distances, though, I don't know, maybe... maybe space shifted, somehow. I don't know how to explain it. All I know is I was in the jungle and then I wasn't, and man, that is some strange shit. I haven't even been out of the jungle in... ah, I don't know, in ages, and this place... Haaa, I don't know what it is, but it AIN'T no jungle. Unless it's in the middle of the jungle. I don't know, is it?" It was possible, wasn't it? "It's nothing like the compound, but nothing could be like the compound, so, ah... so, hell, what do you say?"
"It's not in the jungle," is what Grant had to say. He was a man of few words, especially compared to this guy. The photojournalist had probably spoken more since his arrival than Grant had said in the last month. "Don't worry about explaining it. I don't think anybody can."
"Yeah? I guess I figured. This just don't feel like any jungle, you know what I mean? Doesn't have that, ah, that sense of... Of watching, waiting, something crouched and... The jungle crouched, and I have heard the... ah... It's just different, this is different."
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"I like journalists," I add, smiling as I remember Sanderson. "I'd like to take a look at your pictures if that's possible. And, sure, you can take mine. Nothing like an obvious freak to headline a piece about the freak show that is this place, after all."
((If you're one of the woefully large number of people unfamilliar with Oly's canon, she is a hunchbacked albino dwarf. Currently she's dressed in Hogwarts robes and is sporting a wig and glasses.))
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He nodded. "Yeah, yeah, only I don't have any really, you know, sun shiney pictures with me. I've been in, uh, the war, and it's hasn't been a walk in the park." And a picture? Also good. She was interesting-looking, he liked that. Maybe he'd get pictures of everyone here, some time. "Hell, I don't know about freak, lady. Long as you don't go attacking my face or trying to stick a grenade down my shirt, I think you're a-okay."
((Gracias for the infos. :D))
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"Yeah, you're right about other things killing you faster," I answer him. "And in any case, you're not likely to die while you're here--at least, that's what I've been told."
My smile is sardonic at his comment about the pictures. "Yeah, I figured you hadn't been to a happy place, not after reading that." I gesture with my cigarette toward his application. "I'm still curious, though. I think most people here have been to our fair share of unhappy places, and we can probably handle it."
At his comment about freaks, I laugh. "Nah. Not my style." No, my style involves suffocation via chlorene and ammonia and eventually, failing that, good old-fashioned gunfire, but we haven't even exchanged names yet, so it's not like I'm going to tell him that.
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He shook himself, pulling a handful of pictures out of a bag that he wore slung over his shoulder. He hadn't had any time to organize these yet; they were fairly recent (pictures of the recent captives, the last bundle of men brought to the compound in pieces, the child he'd found in the jungle, monkey playing around with its brains...), and he'd been occupied with a few other matters during the tail end of his stay at the compound. "You've got a sense of adventure. I like that! If you really want to see 'em, here are a few. Nothing spectacular, just this and that..." He trailed off, lost in thought for a moment. Wait. Where was...? It should be safe. He'd kept it separate. The picture of him. He'd been threatened ( ... )
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"What they didn't know was that we had EVERYTHING to win, everything was at stake, we're talking the big time, man. No holding back, no mercy, just GOING out there and doing whatever it takes ( ... )
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None of that actually helped him, of course.
"Ah... Over there, over there, send the word, send the word, over there," his voice was a bit cracked, not fully in tune, but he made up for this in enthusiasm. In some sense. "That the YANKS are comin'! The Yanks are comin'!"
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"Bonjour, mon Américain," he greeted, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "Do you need any more?"
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"We didn't get a lot of French guys out there. heard there was a camp of 'em somewhere, but they must not've been too close, or anything. I mean, I ran into one in the jungle once, but I think that guy came from somewhere else, you never know with anyone crawling around the jungle."
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Francis looked the man up and down as he listened, considering the clothes, the camera, the state of the Photojournalist himself...and well, there was only one war he could recall that fit comfortably with all the pieces. "Vous étiez à Viêtnam??" he guessed, unintentionally slipping back into French.
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"Yeah, sure, I was in Vietnam." He didn't remember much about French, had picked up some here and there and then ceased to use it, but that seemed about right. He figured that was what the guy had said, anyway, heard the question and didn't debate with himself. "We were all in Vietnam, ahah, and then we were all a long way from Vietnam, you know what I mean? I mean, uh, geographically... physically it was right there, right next door, ha!, but we were pretty far gone from there. I mean, we couldn't--most of us couldn't get away from what was going on, exactly - the Colonel could, but man, he was his own story, he was his own man and his own world - but everything changed."
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